Silver Kiss
by Kitty O
Summary: When you put together someone's black darkness and someone's white light, then add a bit of sparkle in the form of a kiss, what color do you get? A Mergana oneshot. "In his defense, it was very difficult to unlove someone all at once..."


_A/N: A bit short, and lacking in the usual detail and dialogue. But I really wanted some Mergana. This is dedicated, by the way, to __**ShadowsBloodPain**__. (You may squeal, Shadows.) Set after season 3, but no real spoilers._

_And yes, I know the name is lame. Anyone got anything better?_

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><p>In his defense, it was very difficult to unlove someone all at once.<p>

Sure, the defense was made a lot weaker by the fact that rather than "all at once," he'd had about a year. But still. It was hard to just hate someone you used to like.

And Merlin had always been the loyal type, ready to stick with his friends through thick and thin. With the way things turned out with Morgana (her trying to kill them and vice versa), it was so thin it was nearly transparent. But obviously it (whatever "it" was) was still there, because Merlin hadn't quite yet succeeded in unloving her yet… A string, tiny but strong, seemed to keep his thoughts tied to her well-being and feelings.

When Merlin faced her shortly after she collapsed part of the castle and disappeared, he'd tried rather pathetically to kill her. She had been hidden in an old hut when they stumbled across her, leaning over a bunch of magical paraphernalia that would doubtless be used to hurt Arthur, so it wasn't like Merlin didn't have enough reason to try to do her in. But his attempts at helping Arthur fight her were truly terrible: he hadn't even tried to aim that knife, and the falling support beam probably wouldn't have killed her anyway.

The fire was a complete accident. He'd been trying to heat her weapon but was distracted when his name was called.

When it happened, he of course tended to his duties—reaching Arthur through the shroud of smoke and helping him and the knights get to safety. He left her inside a burning building, though it made him feel like there was a ripping inside of his chest.

He was still worrying about her (heading inside the building to look, actually) when the whole place collapsed.

The ripping in his chest intensified, stealing his breath.

Eventually it faded but never disappeared. Days later, it was little more than a sting, an itch, an ache. But it was still there, and if Merlin let himself sit still too long, he would start dwelling on it. (Merlin didn't sit still a lot that week.) Was Morgana alive? Dead? Injured? Angry? Would she attack again, and if she did, would she know that he had nearly burned her to death? If she did, and she attacked him on those grounds, he wasn't quite sure that he would protect himself.

Burning someone to death? That was not okay. Not even for an enemy.

And Morgana was an enemy, wasn't she? But if she was, then why did he cry, tears slipping silently down his face, when the building became nothing more than ashes, presumably taking Morgana with it?

_Not like she's the first enemy I've reduced to ashes. First I've cried over. _

He told himself that he'd cried over the loss of the beautiful, sweet Morgana that used to help people and villages in distress. He was certainly not, he told himself, mourning the twisted, smirking, conniving witch who hated him with all her guts and glared at him in that smoldering way, her green eyes flickering in the light and her head held high and proud as though she believed, a hundred percent, as always, in what she was doing… Merlin shook his head. Why was he such a terrible liar?

He fretted silently for weeks, an ever present nibble at his heart waiting to turn into all-devouring carnage. Just waiting for the news. The news that he killed his enemy.

Overall, he was not as horrified and angered as he should have been when she snuck up on Arthur and him in the forest one day. She'd come prepared to kill, but he didn't care about that.

"Merlin, Arthur," she'd growled as they turned around to face the approaching noise they heard, her pale face snarling.

"Morgana!"

It was an undignified yelp. Undignified way of dropping the bags he was holding. Undignified goofy grin. But who cared? Not Merlin.

He found himself rushing forward, pushing the knife she held to the ground with ease, and threw his arms around her like a parent greeting a child that had been missing. She stood there, stiff as a board in her green silk dress, pressed up against him, shocked.

Then he pushed her away a bit – just enough so her head was lifted out of his chest – and then leaned forward and kissed her quite eagerly… Which was less like a parent with a lost child. The tiny string of "it" holding him to her pulsed with delight at the touch. He held her close and wrapped his arms around her middle, relief flooding through him and sewing together the rip in his heart. The small sting hidden there disappeared at once.

She wasn't dead, unreal as that seemed. She was alive and he was holding her—heck, he was _kissing_ her, and she was quite real.

He couldn't wipe the smile from his face after that. Not when she picked up the silver knife and tried half-heartedly to kill them. Not when Arthur chased her off. Not when Arthur then turned to Merlin and declared an answer, an explanation, as to _what just happened_.

Because, though Arthur might not have noticed (or he might have), when Merlin kissed her, despite all the bad blood between them and the brutal past following them… When Merlin kissed her, _she kissed him back_, a smile pulling her lips up even as they were pressed against his.

They might kill each other in the future, might tear each other apart, might fight like two dogs wanting the same bone – a bone named _Camelot_, or maybe _Magic_ – but that didn't change the fact that she'd kissed him back. And the joy that thought brought him was worth suffering the furious interrogation of Arthur Pendragon any day.

(It was official. He was truly horrible at this "unloving" business.)

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><p><em>AN: Review?_


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